Stars
by amberpire
Summary: It's gruesome art, really. / Or, strippers. ;Jade/Cat; AU


**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Victorious. Or any strippers. _

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><p>She keeps telling him to stop bruising her where the customers can see because it makes her look trashy and she fucking hates it. He doesn't listen. I'm your goddamn boss, he says, and kisses her hard on the mouth with too much teeth and spit and her shoulder knocks against a notch in the wall. A green spot throbs there.<p>

Her hands lay limp at her sides. Her eyes are screwed closed, and her brain is somewhere else, and his hands are fumbling with the button of his jeans. No fucking decency, really. The music pulses through the walls.

"I'm about to go on," she grits through her teeth. The sandpaper of his cheeks scratches hers as he travels to her ear.

"Then you better make this quick, hey?"

Eyes roll. She drops to her knees. It's disgusting, it's always disgusting, but it doesn't take long and she wipes her lips when she walks out of the room. He's all sighs and pleasure. She readjusts her stilettos and steps onto the blinding stage.

_Our darling gem, Juicy Jade!_

They roar. She dances.

/

There's a new girl, Andre says. He's the bouncer. He's tall and black and scares people. That's half the reason he was hired. The other half had to do with the fact that he's nice to the dancers and no one is nice to the dancers.

Jade lifts her cigarette from her lips, not looking up from her magazine. It's about three months old, but she reads her horoscope anyway. _Your love life will take a sharp turn today!_

Her name is Cat, Andre continues. He's leaning on the stool with his thick, brown arms crossed and his heels hooked. The bar has an hour to open and Jade is there early because sometimes her boss has extra assignments for her and she gets extra money and extra anything in the kind of life she leads is probably a good thing. Probably. It's dim and smoky and the bartender is scrubbing glasses down the counter.

"Cat Valentine."

Jade does lift her eyes then, dark brows screwed in disbelief. That's a great stripper name.

"It's her real name, I think," he says, dark braids falling in front of his eyes. Fresh nineteen. Red hair.

Jade snorts. Flips the flimsy page of her magazine. Andre suddenly straightens and moves past her, and there's a mumbled introduction to her left but she doesn't even look up, simply drags from her cigarette and stares at the glossy faces of celebrities she doesn't know because the last time she gave a shit about shit like that was probably years ago.

"That's Jade. Juicy Jade, we call her here. Our little starlet. My gem."

Even his voice is slimy. Jade glances sideways. There's a pair of pale thighs decked in green shorts and she's wearing _flip-flops _for Christ's sake. She doesn't bother looking at her face because beside her is a pair of hairy, tan legs she knows too well and looking at his face when she doesn't need to is just a pain in the ass.

Hi.

Her voice is soft. Jade looks at her magazine. Doesn't bother with greetings, and she scuttles off. Andre flexes beside her again, a hot hand on her shoulder.

Be nice. Andre lifts his hand and settles beside her again. "She looks lost."

Jade smiles thinly. Aren't we all.

/

"God damnit, I have to get ready."

The soft roar of the crowd is already building behind the door. He laughs, steps back, and runs a hand through thick, black hair. He waves toward the door. "All right, all right. Go, then. I'll be watching you dance, gem."

Jade slips through the door and clicks down the hallway. It's like she doesn't even wear clothes anymore. Clothes are a nuisance in a place like this. She's in a skirt and boots and a shirt that shows way too much of her midsection. Andre smiles at her as she ducks into the dressing room.

It smells thick of hairspray and deodorant. There's about twelve dancers, including her – thirteen, now. Lucky number, they say. Jade drops in front of her mirror and green eyes slice through the reflection. A shock of red passes over her shoulder. She turns, half interested, to see the new girl's back to her. She's talking shyly to another dancer, Trina, and Trina's lips are sucked in and her cheeks are hollow. She points to her own vanity, says something like, "You can use my make-up but don't mix the eyeshadow or I'll strangle you" and, trembling, the new girl spins on her heel and ducks her head like a kicked puppy toward the vanity.

Jade studies her profile. The button slope of her nose. Red lips. White cheeks. Frantic lashes batting away at high bones. She drops in front of Trina's mirror. Sighs at herself.

Her hair looks like blood. Jade decides she doesn't like it and turns back to her mirror and smears bruises around her eyes, makes her lips a disgusting pink, and ties her hair into a loose ponytail.

_Fling the rubberband at one of the guys. Shake your hair out. Toss it over your shoulder._

The whistles. The hollering. It's more intoxicating than the drinks nestled in their grimy palms. It's almost better than the bills strapped into her thong, inside her bra, a hundred George Washingtons bleeding from her body.

She stands and starts heading toward the back to change her clothes and she catches the redhead again in her peripherals. Her eyes narrow. It's the girl's whole face for the first time – soft, chocolate chip eyes meet Jade's through the mirror. The girl turns, a smile starts to form, but Jade ducks her head and disappears.

There's too much of an old Jade in those pupils. She decides she hates Cat Valentine.

/

"You were so good."

Jade drops off the stage, her breathing heavy, her body glistening with glitter and sweat. She raises her eyebrows at the new girl, fidgeting a great deal in front of her, fingernails practically ripping the ones of the opposite hand right off.

She doesn't say thank you, simply shrugs her shoulders and plops on the stair and unfastens her stiletto straps. The girl doesn't leave, the green of the heels she is wearing shifting back and forth, back and forth, like she might consider clapping them together to take her home.

Jade huffs. Lifts her head. How old are you, anyway?

"Nineteen," she says, swallows, jerks a smile.

Did you graduate? Yeah, last year. Are you going to school? I'd like to. Where do you live? An apartment with a friend.

"You're just a kid," Jade mumbles, her sore feet flexing on the ground. "And you're out on your own."

"You're no older than me."

Jade doesn't say anything. Picks up her shoes and walks away.

She hears the music start up again and, curious, wanders toward the curtain and peers out. The spotlight is filling the stage, clinging to the edges of Cat's arms and legs and that stupid, infuriating red hair.

_Please welcome, our newest dancer - she'll shoot an arrow straight through your heart - Pussy-Cat Valentine!_

Oh, real original, she mumbles into the curtain and the music starts to grind and so do Cat's hips. She's shaking, but no one beyond the stage can probably tell because her clothes are coming off and no one but a fellow stripper would be able to notice that kind of thing.

Cat's soft. Too soft. Supple and pale, the curve where her thigh and bum meet swimming into view as the robe she wears descends.

Jade knows a lot of strippers. They all have their sob story. She's never cared to ask about anyone elses because she simply doesn't give a shit about anything but money and the sound of men calling out for her. It's a sick life, but it's her life, and she doesn't care about new girls with puppy eyes and ugly red hair.

She doesn't watch the girl finish her dance, but the audience is loud.

/

She doesn't drink.

Jade laughs over her shot glass. What?

I swear, I swear she doesn't even drink.

Jade turns over her shoulder. The new girl is smiling shyly at an older gentleman with his hand on her hip. She keeps fidgeting. He's rosy cheeked and she's shaking her head at the tenth offered drink. Jade twirls back to Andre, her lips open in a surprised gasp. Jade is almost drunk. She's a lot more pleasant drunk.

"That won't last long," Jade slurs, head shaking. "Everyone that comes into this – ha, profession? Ends up drinking. Or smoking. Or both. Or worse. All of the above."

Andre smiles at her. "Live fast and die pretty, eh, West?"

Jade nods. That's the plan.

The night spirals to an end. People leave and it's thick with smoke and the neon lights flicker off, replaced with normal bulbs. The girls laugh with their leather jackets and bare thighs as they leave the club and Jade is almost shrugging past Andre with a soft smile when a hand clamps on her elbow. Pulls her back.

"Gem, darling. I need to talk to you."

God damnit, one of these days they're going to notice the bruises, you know, and ask where they're coming from and you're going to be fucked.

"You won't tell." He presses Benjamin Franklin into her slick palms.

He's right. She won't.

/

"I really like daisies, but tiger lilies are my favorite – well, maybe sunflowers are, or orchids, or, oh my gosh, lilacs -!"

She said gosh. Jade laughs, then frowns, then decides that Cat isn't funny at all. Nothing is humorous about that plaguing innocence she carries with her, even when she's on stage. It's stupid. Immature. She's talking to the Vega dancer, a girl who showed up only a few weeks before Cat to join her sister, Trina, and they're both friends, Jade guesses, because they eat together and laugh when the other is done dancing and 'have each others back' or some stupid friend shit.

Jade imagines Cat with lilacs weaved into hair. Purple and red. Like organs.

It's not cute. Cat isn't cute. She's stupid and she looks like she's twelve trying on grown-up clothes.

Jade is the last act that night. She moves with the music like a painter and its brush, making something gorgeous. With blood. Or something.

It's gruesome art, really.

The crowd is loud, demands an encore, and she dances again, laughing as hands roam over her legs, as she twirls around the silver pole like a firefighter, upside down, turn, spin, flip that hair, flip it.

_Jui-cy Jade! Jui-cy Jade!_

Jade West forgets who that is up here, bathing in the light. It's just Juicy.

_Lick the lips. Pinch the nipple. Pretend the bar is the sexiest man you've ever seen._

She makes twice as much as usual because she's so high on the lights and the clapping that she gets down and rubs at her panties, the only thing left on her, and the money rains and rains and the stage is littered with green faces.

"You're not trying to make a move at any of those guys, right? Because you're mine, remember. You're mine."

Shut up, Beck.

"Yeah, yeah. Bend over."

/

"Jade?"

She turns on instinct and meets a set of brown, soft eyes. Jade blinks, steps back. "Uh, hi."

Jade has never seen any of her co-workers not almost naked before. They're at the grocery store. Cat is in jeans and a t-shirt, her stance almost childish as she bounces from foot to foot, leaning on her cart handle. Jade's in a skirt, and boots, and a low-cut shirt, but she's not wearing makeup. She never does when she's not working and she notices that Cat doesn't, either. She's plain, but in a pretty way, and Jade is staring and Jade West doesn't stare at anyone.

I didn't know you lived so close. You look nice. Do you want to grab a coffee and chat? I'd like to be your friend.

Jade almost laughs. She touches the jewels puddled around her throat. She bought it with her extra money from her extra assignments. The stupid gem makes me feel better.

I've gotta go, actually.

"Okay. That's fine. I'll see you at work."

Cat takes off her bra for the first time that night. Jade finds herself peeking behind the curtain every chance she gets, and when Cat steps off the stair, sweating, blushing, pulling her bra back on, Jade is smiling at her and shocks both of them.

"Good job."

Cat blinks. And then she starts to cry.

Jade doesn't have time to stop her before she disappears around a door, past Andre. He stares after her, then swivels to glare accusingly at Jade. She lifts her hands in a show of innocence, shakes her head, I have no idea.

After her song ends, Jade searches for her. Have you seen Valentine? I think she's out back.

Jade pushes the steel door open with a loud screech. The night is heavy, the moon is swollen, and huddled against the chipped, dirty dumpster is Cat Valentine. She jerks her head up, her hand pressed over her mouth. The door closes. Jade tilts her head, wringing her hand through her hair.

Are you all right? Not really.

"It's so demeaning," Cat says. "It's so dirty and I hate it."

Jade leans beside her. Offers the redhead a smoke but she refuses. Jade pulls the nicotine into her lungs and imagines them sticky with tar. "Then quit."

I need the money for acting school. It's the best paying job I can get. Robbie and I both have two jobs just to make the rent and food and -

"Robbie? Is that your boyfriend?"

Cat laughs. It shocks Jade how much she happens to enjoy the sound, sharp sunlight on this dreary night.

"Heavens, no. Robbie is as gay as the day is long. He's my best friend. We're both trying to make it out here, in Hollywood."

Ash flicks to the grass-patchy ground. "This isn't the best start."

"It's all I have right now. Hopefully I can quit within the next year or so, and I'll get a callback, and Robbie won't have to do stand-up so late at night all the time, and we won't have to live in an apartment that leaks with smelly neighbors and I can have a garden and I won't have to take off my clothes in front of strangers -"

You're odd.

Cat laughs. "I get that a lot." She leans against the dumpster and shrugs her shoulders, long, white legs folding beneath her. Her eyes linger a little too long on Jade's profile and the dark-haired girl turns away, nurses her cigarette, examines the stars. The club is simply pulsing behind them with music and laughter and hollering.

Why are you here?

The question hangs in the air long after Cat asks it. Jade pushes off the dumpster and drops the cigarette, smothering it under her heel. "Your next song is coming up," she mumbles, and rips open the door, waiting. The girl hesitates at the dumpster, her eyes casting out over the distant lights of Hollywood blinking over the hills.

And then she walks inside.

Jade really sees too much of an old girl she used to be in this Valentine.

/

Jade shops and shops until her feet hurt. New clothes, new make-up, new outfits for work, new new new. Her closet is bursting with clothes with the tags still on them, and purses and shoes and jewelry and shit she doesn't need or will ever need and what's left is spent on food. Maybe. Or she'll jump online and buy more things, exotic things, like fancy rugs and fur and CDs and movies and it's all great, really.

Until she's up against the wall of her boss's office and he's eating away at her neck like she's a goddamn steak or something.

And to think, Jade used to think Senor Oliver was cute. Handsome. Hot. Sexy.

"My gem."

Three Benjamin Franklins this time. She must have been really good. She didn't notice, really, because her mind had been drifting and she was thinking about Valentine with her gay roommate wanting to be a star.

She would probably look good on the big screen, Jade thinks.

They had said that to Jade, too. Jade West. Not Juicy.

/

She's drinking. Oh my God, look, she's drinking!

Jade turns, following Andre's extended finger. Lo and behold. Cat Valentine is downing a shot. Her eyes are red, her cheeks are red, her hair is red. The girl is one walking cherry.

"Oh, no."

She pushes through the sweating crowd, snags a stumbling, mumbling Cat by the elbow. She turns, brown eyes glossy like coffee grounds and she smiles, her arms lanking around Jade's slim waist. "Hey! I was just talking about you -" she draws out the 'you', laughing, her high-heeled feet catching on the floor. Jade steadies her, dragging her toward the back, disappearing behind the door.

"What's wrong?"

Because even Jade knows that something is wrong if little prissy Cat is getting drunk. They go outside, washed in cold air, and Cat pushes the other girl away. It's automatic, the way the tears spring up.

I hate this.

Me too.

I want to go home.

Why don't you?

"Because my parents hate me. Hate me, hate me."

Jade narrows her eyes. How could someone hate Cat? She's bursting with sunshine. If she had been half the girl Cat is, Jade's parents wouldn't have practically thrown her out of the house. "How? For what?"

Cat shakes her head. Looks at the stars. "I just want to be an actress."

Why do your parents hate you?

A star.

Why do your parents hate you?

Famous.

"Pussy-Cat."

"Juicy."

Jade crosses her arms and leans against the brick of the building. It's starting to grow quiet. Cars on the other side are pulling out, drunken hollering echoing down at them. Jade shifts her legs, rubs her cold palms on her cold thighs and sudden Cat's head is on her shoulder, and her arms around her waist, and shaky breath is crashing against her throat.

They wanted me to be a doctor. I hate doctors.

Jade swallows. Touches the back of Cat's head. "You could pull off a sexy nurse, maybe. Not a doctor."

Cat laughs. It's choked and it hurts, but it's something.

She kisses Jade's shoulder. And Jade has been touched a thousand times by so many men she doesn't remember, by Beck, by strangers, and not once has she shivered the way she does now.

/

I want you to meet Robbie.

Jade frowns at her, opens her mouth to say no, but a yes comes out.

Robbie is tall and lanky with a mop of curly, dark hair and so very, very Jewish. A lewd puppet sits on his hand and when she walks in, all hesitant smiles and nervous twitching, the puppet calls her 'hot stuff'.

"Charmed."

But he's a nice kid - limp wristed and fairy-like, but he hugs Cat and laughs and makes the three of them coffee. Cat sits next to Jade on the small couch in their living area. The apartment is small, almost cramped, and there's only one bedroom. Cat says they just sleep in the same bed.

"He's my best friend. It's not like he's going to do anything naughty."

She says naughty the same way kids in elementary school do. How this girl ever learned to dance the way she does, or how the idea of becoming a stripper ever occurred to her is almost astonishing to Jade, who sips at her coffee and watches the two of them talk back and forth with a soft smile. Jade never had a best friend and it's nice watching them talk so warmly to each other.

"We're going to get married if we're thirty and still single," Robbie says, giving Jade a wink.

"No need," Jade says, lifting her glass. "Cat will be famous by then and she'll have a whole line of husbands to pick from."

Cat meets her eyes. Blushes, coughs into her wrist. "And Robbie will be plucking my husbands away."

They laugh, and it's so damn nice.

/

It's weird.

When she's with Beck, it's Cat. When she's shopping, it's Cat. When she's alone, it's Cat. And when she's dancing, flooded in those lights, breathing with the music, touching the pole, the floor, the hands of strangers, taking off her clothes, taking bills and more bills, it's Cat. It's all Cat, running in the back of her mind.

"What will be our poison tonight?"

Cat drops into Jade's lap. The dark-haired girl blinks as a cold shot glass is pressed into her palm. Cat is warm in her lap, a kitten, her cheeks already burning ruby with alcohol.

"I don't like you drinking."

Brown eyes narrow at her. "What are you, then? My mom, or my friend?"

Jade doesn't know what to say. Cat leaves. She wrings a hand through her hair and meets Andre's eyes across the table and frowns, shaking her head. Don't ask.

"You said so yourself. Everyone in this profession -"

But she's not ... she wants to be famous. She wants to be a star.

/

What?

Jade shifts, rubs her arms, glances down the narrow corridor of Cat's apartment complex. I think you should make Cat quit. It sticks to her tongue as she repeats it, but she says it firmly, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"I can't make her do anything." Robbie glances over his shoulder. Cat's sleeping somewhere in that apartment, smelling of smoke and probably hungover.

Jade looks at her hands. She doesn't know why she cares, honestly. Cat's stupid. And irritating. And way too happy for her own good, too optimistic, too bright, too sunny, too much, too much. Jade runs her thumb over her knuckles. "She's going to get stuck."

"What?"

Stuck. She's going to get stuck. Like me. Like all of us did.

"What are you talking about?"

"If Cat wants to be famous, she needs to get out of the strip club. She doesn't belong there, she's better than that."

Robbie's mouth twists. He leans against the doorframe and sighs and rubs his hair and shakes his head and - I know she is. I hate seeing her do this crap, because I love her and -

Jade spins on her heel and marches away. She tears at the emerald jewels around her throat and drops them into the nearest garbage can. Suddenly, they don't make her feel so good anymore.

/

Will you - stop it - I'm not in the mood - get off!

Beck's fingers crunch bruises into her shoulders and her head hits the wall. The pain erupts in front of her eyes and her knees shake. Jesus Christ. "God damnit, Jade, I don't give a fuck if you're not in the mood, I fucking _own_ your stupid, slutty ass -"

Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!

She thinks about Cat on the big screen, flipping her hair, smiling into the camera, wooing the guy and having a happy ending. It's brilliant, really. She would make such a beautiful actress. Just like they said Jade would be. You're so talented, they said. You're going to make it big, you see. Just go out to Hollywood and you'll be a star. The biggest. The brightest. You'll have everything you could have ever wanted.

The Vega girls catch her as she stumbles into the dressing room. Her eyes are running and her arms are shaking and she thinks the back of her head might be bleeding, she doesn't know, but she blearily calls out for Cat and then she's there, brown eyes swimming, red hair shining under the dim, dirty lights.

Outside.

Cat swings an arm around her neck and they shut the heavy door behind them. Jade leans on the wall and keeps Cat close, shaking her head, closing her eyes.

Please, leave. Please.

"Jade ..."

I mean it. Get out of here, find a different job, you can't be doing this, you're going to end up just like me, the boss's fuck toy and a washed-up piece of shit -

"Jade. Shut up." Cat's hands curl around Jade's chin, pulls it up, meets her eyes. "You're not shit, okay? You're not. You're beautiful."

I'm a _stripper_.

So am I.

Jade shakes her head again, eyes flicking up to swallow the night sky. A thousand stars blink down at her.

Cat kisses her, soft and wet with tears, and Jade wonders - what if this is a bad idea?

What if it isn't?

/

She's just so soft.

Cat trembles beneath her, mews of moans rumbling past her throat as Jade slips a finger inside, followed by another. Oh, God, Jade, Jade.

Robbie's out. It's a good thing, because neither of them are quiet, and they're not really drunk anymore and there's clothes all over the place, and crumbled up green bills falling out of pockets and thongs and bras. George Washingtons peer at them with disapproving pokerfaces.

And Jade doesn't want anyone else seeing Cat the way she is now - bare and open, cupped and cradled in her hands. This should be special. This shouldn't be flaunted on a stage.

"No more, okay? You quit, I quit."

Okay.

Cat, you taste so fucking good.

/

"No shit."

Jade looks up. She's collecting her last paycheck. Andre is frowning.

This is a good thing, Dre.

"I'm going to miss you."

Jade hugs him. Over his shoulder, Beck's head bobs from the hallway, his hips nestled into one of the Vega girl's. Her face is turned away, lip in her teeth. Jade was her, once. She was right there.

Bye, Andre.

/

I got a call back. I got a call back! I got a call back!

Cat, with her apron still on, and her nametag, and her hairnet, has never looked so beautiful, and she hugs Robbie in the kitchen and they scream and jump and then she's springing on the couch, in Jade's lap, smothering her with her lips.

And Jade doesn't have extra money anymore and her feet hurt from bartending every single night, but for this moment, this bright, overexposed moment, every hour she spends not taking her clothes off is worth it.

You're going to be a star.

Cat laughs and whispers against her mouth. "The two of us - shooting stars."

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><p><strong>AN:** _Before there's a meltdown- I know everyone is slightly OOC. It's an AU and it's bound to happen. Regardless, I hope it was enjoyable. The format was very new to me, but it's been something I've wanted to play around with._

_Please review!_


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